Spring bars off or on for short transits

[digitalpa]

I have a Reese WD system rated at 11,500 Max Gross Trailer weight pulling 9,500 Keystone Hideout TT.



Please shed light on a debate with my wife.



I maintain that in a park if you are only traveling a short distance at 5-10 MPH to go dump your tanks, the spring bars and system are not needed. She maintains the trailer should never move without the bars hooked up.


Wisdom please. Thanks.

[notanlines]

I'll have to take your side. You will stand to gain very little hooking them up in my opinion. Hopefully there will be no need for the sway bar on the way to empty! YMMV

[flybouy]

No simple answer. If your hitch is rated at 500 or 700 lbs without wdh and you go plop down double that weight ???? Is it worth the extra "effort" to do it right? So maybe no issue once with stress fatigue, maybe twice what about the tenth time? I wouldn't advise doing it but YMMV.

[wiredgeorge]

Originally Posted by digitalpa

I have a Reese WD system rated at 11,500 Max Gross Trailer weight pulling 9,500 Keystone Hideout TT.



Please shed light on a debate with my wife.



I maintain that in a park if you are only traveling a short distance at 5-10 MPH to go dump your tanks, the spring bars and system are not needed. She maintains the trailer should never move without the bars hooked up.


Wisdom please. Thanks.

Your function as the lesser half is to say, YES HONEY YOU ARE RIGHT. We will be celebrating our 50th anniversary in February next year.

[sourdough]

Look at the receiver rating for use without wdh. I doubt anything would ever happen making that short little jaunt but if you have bumps, thumps etc. who knows? If the tongue weight doesn't exceed the receiver don't worry about it; if just by a little....probably the same.

[dutchmensport]

In all my life and towing several different travel trailers, short and long distances, I have NEVER towed the trailer without the WD bars attached. My drive way is 200 feet long, asphalt, level. I would not even move the trailer from one end of the drive way to the other, or one side of the drive way to the other without hooking up the WD bars..... and I tow with a 3500 dually diesel.

Do it the right way, or don't do it at all. If it you don't do it right and it breaks the tow vehicle, you'll be kicking yourself pretty hard for a long, long time!

[FlyingAroundRV]

From my experience doing the same at parks;
My hitch has a vertical rod (bar?) that sticks down a ways. When I don't use the spring bars, that ends up closer to the ground and more susceptible to hitting things like speed humps etc. Also, when I don't have the spring bars on, my chains drag on the ground.
That said, for short hops in the park to dump tanks, I'm still inclined to leave the bars off. Also, if the turn into a camp site is tight or there is a significant incline between where the trailer will end up and where the truck ends up while parking the rig, I'll take the bars off before backing it in.

[chuckster57]

Real simple, if you do it EVERY time, you will NEVER forget to do it.

[sourdough]

Originally Posted by chuckster57

Real simple, if you do it EVERY time, you will NEVER forget to do it.

Chuck are you saying that if I don't hook up my wdh bars to go to the toilet I'll forget to hook them up when I hit the highway?? I never had that happen in the past. Then again, I've not stayed where there wasn't a sewer hookup in a LONG time.....and I DO seem to forget a lot more these days....but, back to what we were talking about......errr, now what was it? Oh never mind.

[Irish1955]

Kathy's rules:

Rule #1--Kathy is always right.
Rule #2--If Kathy is wrong , see rule number one

Kathy of course is my bride

[digitalpa]

Thanks guys. I have to check that hitch weight and terrain definitely has a lot to do with it. More research on my part

[{tpc}]

I have done exactly this in the past with a previous trailer and truck, but I would not do so now.

For me the reasoning is the previous trailer was lighter, and the previous truck had "auto-ride" leveling. That system has nothing to do with towing (other than being a pain to figure out how to set everything up, but I digress), but what it does do is raise the truck back up to the previous height.

If I tried to do that now, without the bars, I could possibly drag the the tongue jack foot plate over a hump or a bump. So I'm not looking to do that.

Of course I also own a portable holding tank, so now if ever in a situation where I needed to do such a thing, I would use that instead. Of course its one of those things where after you buy it, you never need it lol, but who knows I guess. Its no fun to break down your site to go dump for however long and then pull back to set up again.

[rlh1957]

Hmm? Lightheartedly…
You are correct that just within campground, no uneven drive, never on traffic road, slow with camp speed limit it probably doesn’t matter allot. However you are not distributing weight to front tires without W/D bars and over time can cause uneven tire, spring & suspension wear.

Maybe the argument is on your side… then there’s the female, the wife, who keeps us all happy!
Not sure how many years experience you have in this area but some of us choose to yield rather than be right.

[Danimal713]

Or a slightly different take on this. Since we men "never listen" anyway, just ignore her. Then ask, "Did you say something?"

Of course she does not read this forum so I am safe (I think!)!

No I would never do such a thing!

OK confession time. Our trailer is light for its size at about 6300 lbs max loaded. I have done both but depends on any tight turns. I usually take them off backing in unless fairly straight shot. They don't get stressed that way.

[WDPatterson]

Originally Posted by dutchmensport

In all my life and towing several different travel trailers, short and long distances, I have NEVER towed the trailer without the WD bars attached. My drive way is 200 feet long, asphalt, level. I would not even move the trailer from one end of the drive way to the other, or one side of the drive way to the other without hooking up the WD bars..... and I tow with a 3500 dually diesel.

Do it the right way, or don't do it at all. If it you don't do it right and it breaks the tow vehicle, you'll be kicking yourself pretty hard for a long, long time!

YES... Discipline and practice always wins.

[Ken / Claudia]

I have posted about my travels going hunting and pulling a RV for miles on gravel or dirt roads. I take them off along with the anti sway bar. I am driving slow speeds, real tight corners, and my vehicle has 3100 plus payload. I tried it with the WDH bars on and they hit the road several times. Without them on nothing hits. Would I leave them on if I was close to payload rating during the same drive? maybe.

[Gumby52]

My hitch without WDH is rated at 500 lbs, with WDH - 950 lbs. Trailer tongue comes in at 850 - my Equalizer spring bars are always connected, ymmv. Just sayin.....

Gary

[lunge motorsport]

Weight distributing hitch’s

The purpose of a weight distributing hitch is to, well…distribute the load. Heavy tongue weight will load and compress the rear suspension, proportionally unloading the front suspension. All vehicles with suspension will squat to some degree when loaded. When squat occurs and the front suspension unloads to the degree that it is necessary to mechanically alter that distribution, then a safety element is introduced. Unloading the front suspension significantly will reduce braking effectiveness, handling, and vehicle stability.
I did not, and would not connect the bars for a short jaunt to the dump station if it was in the park and I was not going at road speed, and if it wasn’t down a steep grade or some other reason that the safety factor would come in to play. Now if my rig was dragging on that short trip, I would reconsider this and then address why my suspension was compressing so much as to drag the tongue and/or apparatus. Note that your receiver has different ratings for loading with or without a WDH.
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